Well, we're not going to make May 5 as a final departure date, but we really are getting close. Latest target date is the 15th.

Dave and I looked at each other on Monday and said "No way we'll be ready by Saturday". So the latest plan is to go to the raftup (today), have a nice weekend (and get some 'aboard' projects done), and come back to the house and keep working down the list.

Next Thursday (hopefully by then, nearly ready), we'll move the boat to MYC, so Nancy can bring her boat here over the weekend. We still have to go to the Keys the weekend of the 12th--we'll do this by car. As soon as we get back from the Keys and get the car stashed in Orlando, we can leave. (I hope).

The major things we've accomplished this week:

• Got all of Dave's storage unit stuff packed away neatly in the storeroom, and all the boat stuff out of the storeroom and in front of us in the living room


• The engine is back together again and aligned (major deal)


• The new sails are on


• Our personal shots are up to date (I needed 4 shots!)


• Most of our emergency prescription medications are sorted out for the boat


• Our 6 SCUBA tanks (and 2 for Jean Marie) have been taken to the dive shop, inspected, tested, and filled


• Fabric for the new cockpit cushions is in


• Spent some more time with Amy, my replacement webmaster, teaching her the specifics of maintaining some of the realtor websites


• Research into a backup PTC-2 modem for our HF email capability


• An 'unlock' kit for our phones--to unlock them from Cingular so we can use foreign sim cards as we go from country to country. ($15 on eBay)


• New propane hoses to replace existing hoses and plumb in our new water heater (to be installed at some future date).


• More electronic gadget stuff, including an iTrip for the iPod, and spare batteries and a memory cards for the new camera.


• A major chart operation with our friends on s/v Jean-Marie, comparing our paper and electronic charts with theirs and doing some copying to fill in the holes.


• Got the new Garmin GPSMap 76 GPS hooked into the computer, and checked with Garmin for updates. (the 76 makes 6 GPS's aboard Soggy Paws).


• Purchased 2 large membranes for the watermaker system Dave plans to assemble when we get to the Rio Dulce


• Installed the USB-Serial 4 Port device on Sherry's computer and made sure we had the drivers for it.


• Boat insurance squared away


• More financial and banking stuff done

The boat medical supplies are coming along, but we're still short a few things. It took some major dancing to get the doctor at Patrick AFB to write prescriptions for the stuff we thought we needed. We finally got everything we need except some of the severe pain meds, syringes and sutures. I spent an hour (and $175) down at Walgreens filling out the over-the-counter medications.

We spent quite a bit of time in the last 2 weeks working on insurance for Soggy Paws. Getting insurance for year-round open ocean cruising with just 2 people aboard is hard. Some companies just won't insure you. Some have a more-than-2-crew requirement, and ALL companies are all freaked about hurricane season. We finally settled on the 'Jacklines' coverage by International Marine Insurance Services in Maryland. When we queried our distance cruising friends, nearly all of them used IMIS, or went 'bare'. (The going 'bare' philosophy is to put that $5000 in insurance into boat systems that will minimize the risk of loss, vs. paying it out to some insurance company). Our experience in dealing with IMIS to get a quote was great--they were very responsive and it was apparent that they understood what we were trying to do and were willing to help us get the coverage we wanted for a reasonable price.

Next week we will concentrate on getting the remaining stuff aboard (it's still in stacks in the living room) and provisioning.